You Don’t Need to Buy a Raspberry Pi Monitor

Raspberry Pi starter kits are already getting pretty expensive these days, and it’s easy to think you need everything to get started: a case, keyboard, mouse, and… a dedicated monitor. Well, in most cases you don’t really need any of that stuff.

You’ll only need a Raspberry Pi monitor in a few specific situations, like if you plan to use your Raspberry Pi as a desktop or if you don’t have any other monitors at home. For most projects, a Raspberry Pi monitor isn’t really necessary.

Yes, a monitor can be useful in the beginning. It helps to make sure your Raspberry Pi is booting up as expected. Seeing the display on a screen is reassuring and can help with the initial setup. But you probably have something that can do that job: a TV or your PC monitor, for example.

And honestly, even that first setup often doesn’t require a screen anymore. Raspberry Pi Imager can now configure most things automatically on the first boot: Wi-Fi, username and password, enabling SSH, and Raspberry Pi Connect.

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So 90% of the time, you’ll be configuring things in Raspberry Pi Imager and then connecting remotely from another computer. That’s exactly what I do with my setups, using SSH or VNC most of the time (and I work with Raspberry Pi every day).

And it’s not that complicated, even for beginners. You don’t have to use any command line if you don’t want to. Raspberry Pi Connect gives you the full desktop interface from your web browser. It’s as good as working on the Raspberry Pi directly (as long as you have another computer).

I’d also mention that for most projects, a GUI isn’t necessary at all. If you’re setting up a Jellyfin server, a VPN, a NAS, or an ad-blocker, everything runs in the background, the GUI is useless, and so a monitor makes even less sense (see there how to run your Raspberry Pi “headless”).

I think the only time you really need a dedicated monitor is for projects that naturally require one, like desktop usage or some kind of dashboard. Maybe that can also make sense if you’re planning to have a dedicated space for your Raspberry Pi projects (like in your garage or wherever), as long as you see it as a comfort buy, not a must-have.

By the way, you can also use your iPad or Android tablet as a monitor if you have one. I explain how to set this up in this tutorial. For occasional use, that’s pretty cool (and wireless!).

So, I wouldn’t suggest getting a Raspberry Pi monitor directly if you’re just starting out. Save some money for the really useful parts, and think about it later if you see you really need one.